Gomez, Fernando --- "Private Law II: Contract" [2012] ELECD 675; in Eger, Thomas; Schäfer, Hans-Bernd (eds), "Research Handbook on the Economics of European Union Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Economics of European Union Law

Editor(s): Eger, Thomas; Schäfer, Hans-Bernd

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849801003

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Private Law II: Contract

Author(s): Gomez, Fernando

Number of pages: 32

Extract:

10 Private law II: contract
Fernando Gomez*


1 INTRODUCTION

Under the heading "European private law" very different phenomena are grouped
together. One may use the term to refer to the emergence and affirmation, mostly in the
last couple of decades, of an important set of legal rules created by European institutions
that would belong to what most would characterize as private law in the ordinary sense
of the term in most legal systems. We find EU legislative action in areas of company law
(probably the first to be set in motion), tort law (product liability, environmental liabil-
ity, some areas of liability insurance), contract law (consumers' rights and protection in
multiple kinds of contractual transaction between consumers and firms), IP (copyright
and related rights, trademarks and, to a lesser extent, patents), unfair competition law
(advertising, commercial practices of firms vis-à-vis consumers) and also in private
international law (the important Rome I and Rome II regulations, for instance).
The bulk of these initiatives ­ though not all ­ have been undertaken under the
umbrella of common market powers and policies of the EU. This would come as no sur-
prise, because among the fundamental reasons for the existence of the European Union,
and among the major sources of policies and activities, the establishment and implemen-
tation of an open common European market is for sure one of them.1 The notion of what
constitutes the internal market makes it almost self-evident the existence of a close link
between this goal and ...